CREW'S STORIES
RETURN TO:
Sikorsky R-4 on Bennington CV-20
Subject:
BENNINGTON Information Contact Form
Date:
Sat, 10 Mar 2001 14:00:35 -0500
From:
waynebengston@hotmail.com (Wayne Bengston JR)
To:
info@uss-bennington.org
date: 3/10/2001
mail_subject: BENNINGTON Information Contact Form
name: Wayne Bengston JR
email: waynebengston@hotmail.com
city: Houston
state: Tx
website: yes
web_url: http://www.angelfire.com/wa/bengston/
how_heard: Typed Below
comments:
The following is an excerpt from the book ;
“Chopper! The Illustrated Story of Helicopters in Action.”
By Bern Keating Copyright 1976 Pub. Rand McNally & Co.
FYI: The Sikorsky R-4 was the first helicopter to go into production.
It first flew in Jan. of 1942.
“”Lt.(jg.) Barney Mazonson took off in an R-4 to act as a target for radar calibration of the U.S.S. Bennington, the newly commissioned carrier anchored in Gravesend Bay, off New York City. He had no radio so he landed on the ship’s flight deck to get his instructions. As he put it, when he reported to his superiors on his reception: “All hell broke lose when the helicopter touched down.”
Now the landing of the first aircraft on a new carrier is a big deal and calls for much ceremony. The captain came roaring onto the flight deck in a rage because the ugly little stepchild of the skies had claimed the great honor and spoiled the gaudy dedication show that was scheduled. He ordered the helicopter to leave –that is, as soon as his ship has been rigged for flight operations by having its antennas lowered, and so forth. Lt. Mazonson did not hang about during the embarrassing preparations for evicting him and his unappreciated aircraft; he lifted from the deck and took off backward, dipping out of sight over the side as soon as he could and slinking along at wavetop level went back to his base.””
HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98)
REMOTE_HOST: aca9c1ba.ipt.aol.com
REMOTE_ADDR: 172.169.193.186
This picture MAY be the one in the story above.
It is in my CV-20 photo album.
Bill Copeland
Subject:
Re: BENNINGTON Information Contact Form
Date:
Sun, 11 Mar 2001 22:34:26
From:
"Wayne Bengston Jr." -waynebengston@hotmail.com-
To:
Lonnie@lpwe.com
Lonnie,
That's great! I just found out that they were called HNS-1 under naval service. The book did not have a picture, but that picture on your site is likely it. You can see people gathered looking at it as R-4s were quite a spectacle. They did not make many of them.(It took a while for people to figure out what to do with them.) When I saw that story in the book, I just had to see if there was a Bennington site and what was listed as the first AC on board.:) Great work on the site (all of it).
Wayne
Subject:
Re: BENNINGTON Information Contact Form
Date:
Mon, 12 Mar 2001 08:14:43 -0500
From:
"Bill Copeland" -BCopeland@uss-bennington.org-
To:
"Lonnie Whittaker" -Lonnie@lpwe.com-, "Wayne Bengston Jr." -waynebengston@hotmail.com-
CC:
"JOE CVS PIRES" -jkpires@capecod.net-
References:
1 , 2
That MUST be the picture, then, I have had that picture since 1994 when I made the original WW 2 video.. I got it from Lowell Love, a CV 20 Photographer's mate. On the back of the picture is written "The first aircraft to land on Bennington." I wasn't quite sure whether that was really accurate or not, but ................................
I guess so.
Thanks Wayne, for the story.
Bill Copeland
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